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Dessert

German Waffles

A sweet, lemon-flavored waffle made with butter, powdered sugar, eggs, milk, flour, baking powder, salt, and lemon peel.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

German Waffles

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. Cream the softened butter with the powdered sugar.

  2. Add the egg yolks one at a time, mixing well after each addition.

  3. Stir in the milk and sifted flour mixed with baking powder and salt.

  4. Add the grated lemon peel and fold in the beaten egg whites.

Bake and serve

  1. Grease the waffle iron with butter using a cloth.

  2. Bake until golden brown and sprinkle with sugar mixed with cinnamon and more grated lemon peel.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  2. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  5. Milk + lemontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,053 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Butter
Creams with sugar to build a tender, rich crumb and adds flavour.
Egg yolks
Add richness and emulsify the batter, giving structure and tenderness.
All-purpose flour
Provides the main structure that sets the waffle as it cooks.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the batter so the waffles rise and lighten.
Egg whites
Whipped and folded in, they add air and lightness to the batter.
Milk
Adds moisture and loosens the batter so it spreads in the iron.

The step that matters

Folding in the beaten egg whites. Egg whites hold air that gives lift. Stirring them vigorously deflates the foam, leaving dense waffles, so fold gently until just combined.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, sugar, egg, milk, flour):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Raisinfits better
  3. Figfits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, sugar, egg, milk, flour. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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